Lumora, a provider of state-of-the-art molecular diagnostic products for the clinical and industrial market, has been named in the UNITAID HIV/AIDS Diagnostic Technology Report that highlights innovative new diagnostic technologies for viral load monitoring at or near the point of patient care. Lumora’s HIV Viral Load BART (Bioluminescent Assay in Real Time) is due to be ready to transfer to a commercial partner during 2014 and aims to be one of the most inexpensive technologies on the market for assessing the viral load of HIV patients. The BART assay is expected to cost around $10 per test and the instrument will cost about $1,000. This compares favourably to laboratory-based viral load platforms on the market, for which the instrumentation alone can cost up to $100,000, and per test costs range from $10 to $40 or more.In addition, Lumora’s viral load BART is rapid, with a turnaround time of about 60 minutes. Laboratory-based assays can take more than 3 hours to complete. The company believes that the viral load assay for use on the BART platform will be one of the fastest and easiest to use. The company believes it has demonstrated that BART is a proven platform for low resource settings through the adoption in more than 30 countries of its food pathogen test and platform that includes Lumora’s robust and easy-to-use technology. Lawrence Tisi, CEO of Lumora, said: “The ability to monitor HIV patients is crucial to ensuring they receive the best treatment. While this is relatively easy in the western world, for patients in the developing world, it is a much greater issue. Many of the machines are expensive to buy, limiting their use, and the cost and time involved in doing a single test can make it prohibitive. This report neatly summarises the range of assays available, showing just how competitive Lumora’s BART assay will be.”Hayden Jeffreys, Commercial Director at Lumora, added: “With our HIV Viral Load BART assay ready to be commercialised by a partner this report is extremely timely. It shows the advantages of Lumora’s BART technology, namely in terms of price, but also its speed of use. At the same time, the instrument is handheld and easily portable, meaning it can be used in a wide range of environments. Based in Geneva and hosted by the World Health Organization, UNITAID uses innovative financing to increase funding for greater access to treatments and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in low-income countries. The full report can be found at: http://www.unitaid.eu/images/marketdynamics/publications/UNITAID-HIV_Diagnostic_Landscape-3rd_edition.pdfThe UNITAID semi-annual update can also be found at: http://www.unitaid.eu/images/UNITAID_2013_Semi-annual_Update_HIV_Diagnostics_Technology_Landscape.pdf-ends-